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Trump Admits to Daniels Payout Reimbursement

President Donald Trump admitted to reimbursing his attorney Michael Cohen the $130,000 Cohen paid adult actress Stormy Daniels for her silence about her alleged affair with Trump in 2006. Trump tweeted his admission hours after his new attorney, Rudolph Giuliani, spilled the news on Fox and Friends. (Published Thursday, May 3, 2018)

What to Know

President Donald Trump said he reimbursed his personal lawyer for hush money paid to a porn star through a monthly retainer

Trump previously claimed he didn't know about the payments to Stormy Daniels or the source of them

President Donald Trump acknowledged Thursday he repaid his personal lawyer for hush money given to porn actress Stormy Daniels after claiming previously he didn't know about the payments. But the money, paid just before the 2016 election to stifle her claims of an affair, "had nothing to do with the campaign," the president tweeted.

Trump said his attorney Michael Cohen received a monthly retainer, which he used to pay the actress to sign an agreement not to talk about her allegations and thus "stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair."

Trump's tweets outlining the arrangement came after Rudy Giuliani, one of his new attorneys, said Wednesday that Trump reimbursed Cohen for $130,000 paid to Daniels. During an appearance on Fox News Channel's "Hannity," Giuliani said the money to repay Cohen had been "funneled ... through the law firm and the president repaid it."

Asked if Trump knew about the arrangement, Giuliani said: "He didn't know about the specifics of it, as far as I know. But he did know about the general arrangement, that Michael would take care of things like this, like I take care of things like this for my clients. I don't burden them with every single thing that comes along. These are busy people."

Mr. Cohen, an attorney, received a monthly retainer, not from the campaign and having nothing to do with the campaign, from which he entered into, through reimbursement, a private contract between two parties, known as a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA. These agreements are.....

...very common among celebrities and people of wealth. In this case it is in full force and effect and will be used in Arbitration for damages against Ms. Clifford (Daniels). The agreement was used to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair,......

...despite already having signed a detailed letter admitting that there was no affair. Prior to its violation by Ms. Clifford and her attorney, this was a private agreement. Money from the campaign, or campaign contributions, played no roll in this transaction.

Speaking on "Fox and Friends" Thursday, Giuliani said Trump didn't know all the details until "maybe 10 days ago." While stressing that Trump denies the relationship, he said Cohen may have seen $130,000 as "cheap."

"They said it wasn't true," Giuliani said. "However, imagine if that came out on October 15, 2016, in the middle of the last debate with Hillary Clinton. Cohen didn't even ask. Cohen made it go away. He did his job."

The comments contradicted statements made by Trump several weeks ago, when he said he didn't know about the payment to Daniels.

Giuliani later suggested to The Wall Street Journal that while Trump had repaid the $130,000, Cohen had settled the payment to Daniels without Trump's knowledge at the time. And he told The New York Times that Trump set up reimbursement payments after the campaign was over, totaling about $460,000 for "incidental expenses" incurred on Trump's behalf.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders echoed Giuliani's comment Thursday, telling reporters that Trump wasn't being untruthful when he said he didnt about the payments. She said the nature of the payments was "information the president didn't know at the time but eventually learned."

When asked at what point she personally knew about Trump's reimbursement, Sanders said she first became aware of it "during the [Giuliani's] interview last night."

Trump Calls Cohen Raid 'Disgraceful'

President Donald Trump said the federal raid on the office of his attorney, Michael Cohen, was "disgraceful" and part of a "witch hunt." He also mulls whether he should fire special counsel Robert Mueller and brings up Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

(Published Friday, April 13, 2018)

Sanders added that Trump "has denied and continued to deny the underlying claim" regarding Stormy Daniels and referred reporters to Giuliani's "pretty lengthy statements" for more information.

A source familiar with the matter told NBC News that Giuliani's Fox statement "was not coordinated" with the rest of the president's legal team. And his revelation appeared to take many in the West Wing by surprise as well. In briefings and media appearances, White House aides have sought to avoid staking out a clear position on the matter, directing reporters to Trump's own comments. And the way Giuliani announced details — on live television and imprecisely —raised fresh worries about the president's uneven legal team. But it was no accident.

"Of course" this is a strategy, said former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who led Trump's presidential transition before being fired.

"You know, there's an old saying in the law, 'Hang a lantern on your problems.'" Christie said on ABC. "So he comes in, he knows that there's been different stories being told about this payment and how it was made. So the fact is that Rudy has to go out there now and clean it up. That's what lawyers get hired to do."

Law firms advance expenses for clients as a matter of course, so there's nothing inherently improper about a lawyer covering a particular payment and then being reimbursed for it. In this case, though, the client who apparently reimbursed the expense was running for president and the money was paid just days before the election. That raises questions about whether Cohen's law practice was functioning as a vendor for the campaign and the expense was therefore an unreported campaign expenditure. If so, that could be legally problematic.

Asked aboard Air Force One last month whether he knew about the payment, Trump said flatly: "No." Trump also said he didn't know why Cohen had made the payment or where he got the money.

FBI Raids Office of Trump Lawyer Michael Cohen

Federal agents on Monday raided the offices of President Donald Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen, who has been under public scrutiny for weeks over a $130,000 payment to a porn actress who says she had sex with Trump more than a decade ago.

(Published Monday, April 9, 2018)

In a phone interview with "Fox and Friends" last week, however, Trump appeared to muddy the waters, saying that Cohen represented him in the "crazy Stormy Daniels deal."

The White House referred questions to the president's personal legal team.

Giuliani, a former New York City mayor and ex-U.S. attorney who joined Trump's legal team last month, said the president had repaid Cohen over several months, indicating the payments continued through at least the presidential transition, if not into his presidency. He also said the payment "is going to turn out to be perfectly legal" because "that money was not campaign money."

"Mr. Trump evidently has participated in a felony, and there must be serious consequences for his conduct and his lies and deception to the American people," he said.

Sean Hannity Named as Cohen's Third Client

Michael Cohen, Trump's personal lawyer, appeared in court Monday to argue that some documents seized during an FBI raid should remain private. In court it was revealed that Cohen's previously undisclosed third client is Fox News host Sean Hannity. Hannity denied hiring Cohen as his lawyer 'in a traditional sense.'

(Published Monday, April 16, 2018)

Giuliani spoke initially to Fox host Sean Hannity, who has his own connection to the case. It was recently revealed in court that Hannity is one of Cohen's clients. Hannity has described his personal dealings with Cohen as centered on real estate advice.

Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, says she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, months after his third wife gave birth to his youngest child, and was paid to keep quiet as part of a nondisclosure agreement she is now seeking to invalidate. She has also filed a defamation suit against Trump after he questioned a composite sketch she released of a man she says threatened her to stay quiet.

"I think there is no question that he is defaming my client," Avenatti said Thursday on "Morning Joe" in response to the president's latest tweets. "We're going to examine what was said. We’re going to figure out what our next steps are."

He added: "So let me get this straight. He was only lying about the reimbursement but now he's telling the truth?"

The White House has said Trump denies having a relationship with Daniels.

Cohen had said previously: "Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly." He notably did not include the president personally.

Asked about Cohen's denial, Giuliani said he didn't know whether Cohen had made the payment without asking Trump but that he had "no reason to dispute that."

Cohen himself is under increasing legal pressure. He is facing a criminal investigation in New York, and FBI agents raided his home and office several weeks ago seeking records about the nondisclosure agreement.

Giuliani's revelation seemed aimed at reducing the president's legal exposure. But outside experts said it raised a number of questions, including whether the money represented repayment of an undisclosed loan or could be seen as reimbursement for a campaign expenditure.

"If this is true then it looks like Cohen may have made an unreported loan to the campaign rather than a contribution," said Richard L. Hasen, an expert in election law at the University of California, Irvine.

He said that might be better for Cohen, but not for Trump, because it undermines the argument that Cohen was acting independently.

"The greatest significance is that it implicates the president directly," he said.